1 26 Remarks on the Case of Miss M' Avoy. 



asperity to the touch than the paper. The simple question, 

 therefore, is, whether this essential and substantial difference, the 

 existence of which none will pretend to deny, is palpable to, or 

 cognizable by, the human touch ? 



" Implicitly relying upon the assurance of her professional at- 

 tendants, that Miss M'y\voy was blind; and having seen her ex- 

 hibit her surprising feats, when she was so completely bandaged, 

 that her eves, had they been of the most perfect nature, could 

 not, as I then llmu^lit, have been of any avail ; — I found it im- 

 possible to withhold my belief, that she enjoyed some superior 

 organs of touch, by which she was enabled to decipher the words 

 of a printed book, and to ascertain various shades of cloth ; par- 

 ticularly as the latter power has been admitted in the cases of 

 many persons who have been unquestionably blind. The sub- 

 sequent pretensions of the young lady, when she began to tell the 

 time of the day by feeling at the watch-glass, and to identify 

 passengers in the street by applying her fingers to the window- 

 glass, were so extremely prepo>>terous — so much at variance with 

 the attributes of touch — that I could not afterwards regard the 

 whole performance in any other light than that of a clever de- 

 ception, in which, as I expressed myself in my first letter, ' the 

 eye was, in some way or other, concerned.' 



" Those persons who have been, or still continue to be, thorough 

 believers in the faculty of Miss M'Avoy, either refer the pheno- 

 menon to the class of miracles, or rest their faith upon one of 

 two data, neither of which has been proved, and both of which 

 are strongly presumed to be false. They take it for granted, in 

 the first instance, that she is actually blind; and, in the next 

 place, they assume, that, if this was not the case, she has, du- 

 ring the experiments, been so completely blind-folded, by the 

 application of bandages, gogglers, gold-beaters' skin, and other 

 means, as to render all access of light to her eyes absolutely im- 

 possible. — Mr. Dale, who is a most complete ultra-M'Avite, and 

 who has designated her power the ' culicular faculty ,' boldly 

 maintains both these positions ; and as he is the latest as well 

 as the most devoted champion of the transparent theory, I shall 

 quote the following passages from a letter of his : — ' Upon inspect- 

 ing her eyes, with that attention which her case demanded, I felt 

 assured, that the visual power was completely gone.' Soon af- 

 ter which, speaking of the gogglers used, he adds, ' these I ex- 

 amined, prior to their being applied ; and, after they were firmly 

 fixed, I was thoroughly satisfied, that even although she had ac- 

 tually been in possession of the full and proper use of her eyes, 

 those organs could not possibly avail her, in attempting, whils 

 thus hood-winked, to ascertain colours.' 



" I have 



